Stateless: When Germany Deported Thousands of Polish Jews in 1938

The Polenaktion was a precursor to sudden arrests, roundups, deportations, violence, seizure of property and countries making clear Jews were not welcome.

My father’s cousin, Stan, was born in Poland in the early 1900s. Although he escaped Poland during the war and survived the Holocaust, his family did not. Stan rarely spoke of their deaths; it was too painful. But sometimes he shared, and there was one story which always made him cry. It was about his mother and her belief that family togetherness would keep them safe.

In the early 1900’s thousands of Polish Jews moved to Germany and Austria. They hoped to escape the poverty and anti-Semitism in Poland and create a better life. Stan’s maternal uncle, Avram, was one of the hopeful. He left for Germany around 1915. Stan’s mother sometimes wept because she missed Avram so much. Even though she understood his reasons for moving away, she thought him foolish. “He should be here,” she insisted. “How can he raise his children among strangers? People are safest when they stay close to home and family.”

By 1938, approximately 50,000 Polish Jews had moved to Germany and 20,000 to Austria. Many of them had lived abroad for decades and considered themselves more German than Polish, but they did not hold German citizenship. After the annexation of Austria in 1938, the Polish government feared a mass return of Polish Jews living abroad. It passed a law which affected the passports of people who lived outside Poland for over five years. These passports now needed a special endorsement stamp to stay valid. Failure to get the stamp by October 30th meant loss of citizenship and closed borders.

The German Reich began deporting these “stateless” Jews on October 27, 1938. During this “Polenaktion” (Polish Action), 17,000 thousand Polish Jews were arrested, detained, loaded onto trains or marched to the Polish border. In many instances, the government deported only men because it believed women and children would find a way to join their husbands/fathers. Sometimes, entire families – including Avram’s – were expelled. Along the way, people died from strain and illness; some committed suicide. When they reached the border, the Germans made them turn over all money except for ten Reichsmarks.

A Jewish soup kitchen in the border town of Zbaszyn

Polish border guards allowed the first group of Jews to come into Poland. Thereafter, they refused admittance. When Avram, his wife and three children were hustled off a train and marched to the Polish border, the guards denied them entry. Avram and his family – along with the other Jews from his train – hurried away from the border on foot, bewildered and frightened. German police forced them to turn around.

And so it went, back and forth, Jews treated like tennis balls in a macabre game. Polish guards screamed and brandished weapons; German police fired shots in the air and laughed; barking dogs strained against their leashes.

The Polish government finally allowed the Jews to stay in several border towns in a bizarre “no man’s land.” Food and medical care were scarce. Thousands of displaced Jews sought shelter in stables and sheds. Avram and his family slept on the floor of an old mill amid flour sacks and bins. Jewish organizations in Poland set up refugee camps while the Polish government tried to get Germany to take the Jews back.

“No one wants us.”

“No one wants us,” Avram wrote Stan’s mother in one of many letters. “We have nothing and don’t know where to go.” Avram considered emigration, but it was a difficult and expensive process. Perhaps he should stay by the border in case the situation in Germany improved. Stan remembered his parents discussing ways to convince Avram to live with them. “My mother was heartbroken to imagine her brother homeless and vulnerable.”

In November 1938, Poland agreed the Jews could stay as Polish residents. Avram and his family moved in with Stan’s parents. Stan’s mother was not blind to the existing dangers in Poland and the rising threat in Germany. But she told Avram: “Now you will be safe. We are safe when we are together.”

Polish Jews being deported from Germany.

Stan remembered Uncle Avram and his family as being distinctly foreign. The children spoke Yiddish and German and understood only a smattering of Polish. They dressed differently and seemed sophisticated. Cosmopolitan. Even Avram and his Polish born wife were disconnected from local ways. Stan’s mother encouraged Avram to adapt, move forward and re-build a life in Poland. Inspired by her optimism, Avram believed he could start again.

All Polish Jews were gone from the border towns by August 1939. And on September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland.

Most of us are familiar with Kristallnacht in November 1938 which the Germans stated was retribution for the murder of a German diplomat in Paris. (Herschel Grynszpan, the young man responsible, claimed he acted to protest the Polenaktion and his parents’ deportation to a Polish border town.) But for Stan, the October Polenaktion was more significant than the bombs and burnings of November. Although the German government had victimized Jews for years, the Polenaktion was a precursor to sudden arrests, roundups, deportations, violence, seizure of property and countries making clear Jews were not welcome.

Eighty years ago this month, Stan’s Uncle Avram and his family were thrown out of Germany, lost their material possessions, treated as sport and forced to endure terrible circumstances.

Stan was forcibly separated from his family during the war. He escaped Poland and later discovered that his parents, Uncle Avram and his wife and children were rounded up on a single day, shot and thrown into a pit. What made Stan weep the most was remembering his mother’s optimism and joy in Avram’s return. She didn’t understand that “no man’s land” was not confined to the border and would soon come to their front door. She didn’t realize the strength of family bonds was not enough to repel the evil.

Stan’s mother prayed for the family to be together. And at the end – except for Stan – they were.

Thank you for this article which brings back memories. When I was a young child, my Mother purchased a magazine which showed pictures of horror done to Jews sometime in the late 1930's or early 1940's. She purchased it at a news stand in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. I was not allowed to see those horrid pictures which showed mass graves of innocent Jews and more. I disobeyed her and DID see those pictures, too, and could not understand WHY this happened. She told many friends about this magazine and was appalled because of what was happening AND WHY did she not know about such torture since it was not written about in our newspapers. ( We subscribed to the PITTSBURGH PRESS AND the BROWNSVILLE TELEGRAPH newspapers.) May this evil never happen again to Jews or any other innocent people.NEVER.

(8)
Bobby5000,
October 6, 2018 4:24 AM

Israel and the lessons of the holocaust

Resistance was quite limited and then met with overwhelming force causing the victims to cower and cooperate. Had the Jews continued with resistance, the scope of the Holocaust would have been far less. If Jewish communities purchased machines guns, there were acts of sabotage to installations, the Nazi effort could have been slowed. (I have a Seal Team family member and even one well-prepared person can do a lot).

Instead, thousands of Jews could be killed without a single German casualty. and the lessons were not lost on the State of Israel.

1. Assume when people say they will kill, they will do it. Recognize threats. Today, intelligence accurately evaluates threats. Kinds word in person with talk of violence internally means nothing.

2. Be organized and fight back. Each act of violence is met with a return act of hopefully greater severity. Military strength is treasured.

3. Make taking Jewish lives carry a high price. When acts of terrorism occurred, perpetrators houses were destroyed, and sometimes the culprits would be tracked down.

4. Be physically fit and militarily trained. With the willingness to give your life, came safety, the scope of fatalities in 75 years of Israel was far less than in one year from 1938-45.

5. Don't assume third parties will care and save Jewish lives. When France suggests what safe borders would be, ask them how trust and cooperation worked in 1940.

I was quite touched by your article. My own grandfather was arrested on the Strassenbahn in Duesseldorf on the 29th of October, 1938. Standing on the train, a friend boarded and my grandfather looked at him and asked "Haben Sie schon das Neuste uber die Polenaktion gehort?" (Have you heard the latest on the Polenaktion?) Unbeknownst to him, a member of the Gestapo was on board and arrested him immediately simply for mentioning it. Only now do I realize this month is 80 years since that innocent question.

(6)
Jared Berezin,
October 5, 2018 11:40 AM

macabre game

The metaphor of “tennis balls in a macabre game” visualizes the ease with which cruelness and bureaucracy assist one another. Tragically, the powerful image holds true today as the "tennis game" continues for many people, including asylum seekers and immigrants in the U.S. it was also fascinating to learn the connection between Kristallnacht and Polenaktion. Thank you Laura for an illuminating article.

(5)
Judi Shaw,
October 5, 2018 7:09 AM

Father forgive them they know not what they do.

The heartache and cruelty shown by the Nazi's is beyond belief. How could they treat human beings like this. Torture, humiliation and everything to dehumanize this group of Polish Jews. A regime of fear and control and murder. A well written reminder that this must not ever happen again.

(4)
Joy Levy,
October 4, 2018 4:56 PM

An important article that everyone who believes in justice for all humanity should read.

The horrific plight of the Jewish people during the Holocaust is not only heartbreaking, but MUST serve as a lesson, especially during times like these. Deutsch’s wonderfully written article is moving, but also a reminder that such things can happen again. Fascism is on the rise in Europe, Latin America, and even the US. Once again, hatred is acceptable. Laura Deutsches makes us cry for the terrible past, but also makes us think of the necessity for prevention of such horrors in our present and future. I look forward to reading more from this fine author.

(3)
Mara,
October 4, 2018 2:35 PM

Deeply Moving

Gives a human touch to that which is fictionalised in The Girl from Krakow - and that was the most haunting testimony I'd read until now. You made me weep.

(2)
Annie,
October 4, 2018 4:51 AM

I am reading about the Lusitania, and although I knew a reasonable amount about it, I am finding out even worse things about this event 23 years before 1938....the Germans deliberately targeted a passenger ship and sank it, murdering hundreds of people, including most of the babies and children on board...and had a MEDAL STRUCK TO COMMEMORATE THE ACHIEVEMENT.Yes, they did that. Why, when this sort of thing was known, were some people surprised by the Holocaust ?

One can only wonder at what sort of people Germans are.

Annie,
October 5, 2018 5:33 AM

1200 people murdered and blamed by the Germans for being there in the first place.

The names like '.....aktion' and Kristallnacht are total insults.

I have met old Germans who say that they had no idea - that everyone lived peacefully together until Hitler came along and told the Germans not to like the Jews any more - that they didn't know where the Jews had gone and so on. How stupid do they think that people are ??? Didn't they wonder why the trains went away crammed and came back empty for more people to take away ? Didn't they wonder what was going on ?

(1)
Marilyn,
October 3, 2018 1:04 PM

Very interesting and well written article, made even more moving by the actual story that it told. I was not familiar with the expulsion and plight of Polish Jews from German referred to as Polenaktion. Overshadowed by Kristallnacht,, it seems that this action may have been a testing ground for Kristallnacht and the Holocaust itself. With little public outcry both inside Germany and internationally, the Nazis recognized it could continue with it's plans to annihilate its Jewish population without interference.